Page 142 - madame-bovary

all the same, to see an acquaintance go off.’
And while he fastened up his box he discoursed about
the doctor’s patients.
‘It’s the weather, no doubt,’ he said, looking frowningly
at the floor, ‘that causes these illnesses. I, too, don’t feel the
thing. One of these days I shall even have to consult the
doctor for a pain I have in my back. Well, good-bye, Ma-
dame Bovary. At your service; your very humble servant.’
And he closed the door gently.
Emma had her dinner served in her bedroom on a tray
by the fireside; she was a long time over it; everything was
well with her.
‘How good I was!’ she said to herself, thinking of the
scarves.
She heard some steps on the stairs. It was Leon. She got
up and took from the chest of drawers the first pile of dust-
ers to be hemmed. When he came in she seemed very busy.
The conversation languished; Madame Bovary gave it up
every few minutes, whilst he himself seemed quite embar-
rassed. Seated on a low chair near the fire, he turned round
in his fingers the ivory thimble-case. She stitched on, or
from time to time turned down the hem of the cloth with
her nail. She did not speak; he was silent, captivated by her
silence, as he would have been by her speech.
‘Poor fellow!’ she thought.
‘How have I displeased her?’ he asked himself.
At last, however, Leon said that he should have, one of
these days, to go to Rouen on some office business.
‘Your music subscription is out; am I to renew it?’

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